II

All that night the enemy counter-attacked us doggedly, resolved upon driving us down again. All night we fought to keep what we had won, and prepared the redoubled blow that we meant to deliver next day.

That blow was destined never to be struck. The wind that brought the rain blew out our hopes of victory.

[36] “The weather had been threatening throughout the [first] day, and had rendered the work of our aeroplanes very difficult from the commencement of the battle. During the afternoon, while fighting was still in progress, rain began, and fell steadily all night.

“Thereafter, for four days, the rain continued without cessation.... The low-lying, clayey soil, torn by shells and sodden with rain, turned to a succession of vast muddy pools. The valleys of the choked and overflowing streams were speedily transformed into long stretches of bog, impassable except by a few well-defined tracks, which became marks for the enemy’s artillery. To leave these tracks was to risk death by drowning, and in the course of the subsequent fighting on several occasions both men and pack animals were lost in this way. In these conditions operations of any magnitude became impossible, and the resumption of our offensive was necessarily postponed until a period of fine weather should allow the ground to recover. As had been the case in the Arras battle, this unavoidable delay in the development of our offensive was of the greatest service to the enemy. Valuable time was lost, the troops opposed to us were able to recover from the disorganisation produced by our first attack, and the enemy was given the opportunity to bring up reinforcements.”

It was nearly a fortnight before the 5th Army could again attack.

The disappointment of the Higher Command was acute; acute, too, were the physical and mental miseries suffered during that fortnight by the Tank Corps and all the other arms engaged.

Their magnificent efforts, their sacrifices, were of no avail. There they lay day after day, drenched by the inexorable rain, those in the forward area half choked in the rising streams of liquid mud.

It was in no sunny frame of mind that the 5th Army Headquarters Staff read the verdict of the three Corps upon the day’s work done by the Tanks.

The three Summaries were agreed that the courage and perseverance shown by Tank personnel had been admirable.

A DEADLY SWAMP (THE WRECKS OF SIX TANKS MAY BE COUNTED)

“CLAPHAM JUNCTION” NEAR SANCTUARY WOOD

“THE SALIENT”

One Corps, however, had given way thoroughly to the spirit of the time. They practically reported that Tanks had been of no use to any one, and moreover that they were never likely to be. With the 30th Division they had been unable to deal with certain machine-gun emplacement; with the 24th they had been late, they always drew enemy shell-fire; and with the 8th Division one Tank had even lost direction and been reported as firing on our own men.

Another Corps had found Tanks helpful, and said all they could for them.

Tanks had greatly assisted the Gordons and Black Watch at Frezenberg, they had dealt effectively with concrete dug-outs; with the 55th Division they had broken the wave of an enemy counter-attack at Winnipeg, and everywhere their moral effect on the enemy had been of great assistance. Twenty-four Tanks had been put out of action by bad going or shell-fire.

A third Corps with fewer machines had in many cases reached their objective without being held up. The Tanks had in these cases merely followed the infantry, but they reported that without Tanks the capture of the strongly wired position of Alberta would have cost the 39th Division dear, and that on the Steenbeek near Ferdinand Farm the enemy, who had bolted at the mere sight of a Tank, had been “dealt with” at ease with a machine-gun by infantry of the 51st Division.

Upon these Summaries and upon later failures the Commander of the 5th Army was subsequently to base a generally unfavourable report upon Tanks.

The report may be condensed into a simple syllogism:—

1. Tanks were unable to negotiate bad ground.

2. The ground on a battlefield will always be bad.

3. Therefore Tanks are no good on a battlefield.

He added to this, that being no longer a surprise to the enemy, he considered that Tanks had lost their moral effect, and had no value used in masses.

This report was not officially presented for some weeks, but the Higher Tank Command must early have perceived the drift of affairs. The events of the first day and the manner in which those events were interpreted gave only too much data to the prophetic spirit. The junior Tank personnel knew little of what was going on. Like Burns’s mouse, they were only touched by the present, the throwing away of what had cost them so many weeks of toil. To the Higher Tank Command was reserved Burns’s own fate:

“But, och! I backward cast my ee

On prospects drear!

And forward, tho’ I canna see,

I guess and fear.”

What would be the results of the initial ill-success of the battle, and of the further Tank failures which seemed only too probable when an advance which had begun so ill was continued, after perhaps two or three inches more rain?

How were the final arbiters, G.H.Q. and the War Cabinet, going to regard such failures? Tanks had been employed under grotesque conditions, and after all, they had failed in common with every other arm. Were the events of the next few weeks to be disastrous enough to consign them irrevocably to Bottomless Perdition?

At best their hopes of expansion would most probably be nipped. Their establishment would be reduced, and Tanks would be used in petits paquets again, by ones and twos as they had been in the past, because, once more, there would never be enough machines for an effective action.

As the days wore on, and the rain continued (at the rate often of an inch a day), one of these alternative fates seemed inevitable.

The gloomy surmises of the Tank Headquarters Staff were only too well founded. The authorities were in fact suffering from one of the worst cold fits which the pilots of the Tank Corps at home and abroad ever endured.

Tank Corps Headquarters heard it all. They knew well enough that in well-informed but irresponsible London circles the remark, “I hear the Tanks are going to be abolished,” was a common one; that often in such gossip circumstances of person and date would be added.

For all this they had no certain refutation. If only Tanks could even now do something that would catch the eye of authority. Some little “show” exploit. Something that would at least make a summary condemnation unlikely. The battle would have to be continued some day. Tanks would have to play their part, but in that intolerable swamp was it likely that they would do anything except engulf themselves—literally and metaphorically—yet deeper than before?

There, however, lay the Tanks’ best hope. Chance and their own exertions might bring them a success even in Flanders.